Just got a message from Joel. I had asked him to let me know when what I sent was received.

[release]Hi Trevor,

We received your envelope. I have sent out an email to the company to sign the logo that you sent in. As soon as it’s nice and full, I’ll make sure that I gets sent back to you. It will certainly be a nice addition to your inverted triangle J[/release]

The "J" is a smiley face but it becomes a J when copy-pasted.

So I replied

[release]Perfect Timing. I was just about to email you again in case you missed it. Did YOU sign it? what about the lady that stocks the fridge who won't talk to Wolpaw?

But thank you. Can I expect a 2011 release of the package or is it gonna be delayed?

I understand that you must get tons of emails from people like me, but I was wondering whether an update to Hammer will be released? And when?

Regards,

George

And their reply:

Hi George,

Unless the TF2 team decides to refresh Hammer sooner, I would expect the next Hammer update to go out when Dota2 comes out of beta. That's assuming the Dota2 team releases an SDK with Dota2, and I don't know what their plans are specifically.

Is there anything specific that you're hoping to see in an update?

-- David

And then my reply:

Hi David,

The main thing that I would like to see is not exactly hammer related,
and that is mod support for Macs.

What would be cool to see (though not necessary) is to create shaders
from within hammer, especially as someone has now released a flowchart
shader app, so it should be easy to implement.

I suppose that what all modders such as myself wish to see is for all
source engine games to be updated to Source 2011.

Can I also say that all you guys at valve are legendary. I would love
to get a job there one day.

What would make EVERYONE really really happy right now would be if you just shut up and learned from this. What you have done is come here saying 'hey guys here is what I think it will look like. what do you think?' Then when someone says 'it's not good, because...' you just go 'NO HOW CAN IT BE!' Take the advice that you have been given, and LEARN how to use photoshop. You don't have to get defensive if we disagree with your vision of the next CS game! Sheeesh! Is it over yet? Just don't post here ever again, don't bother, you'll make it worse!

Now, back to discussion, what should I do with my Saxton Hale poster signed by Gabe? Frame it? Any ideas? I was thinking of sending Gabe one with my signature on it, as a joke. :D

Headcrabs are creatures with a long and rich history, so they've had countless mothers over the years...there's not just one Big Mama.

Is Blue Shift canon? I don't think we've ever taken a side in the canon debate.

As for the vorts, I think it's just the passage of time. The first ones were purely an exercise in creature design. For hl2 we had to figure out how to give them a voice...working with an actor who had never heard the first game and didn't have any associations with the original creatures.
---------------------------------------------
From: eben ***** [mailto:************.com]

Sent: Thursday, August 25, 2011 4:54 PM

To: Marc Laidlaw

Subject: a few questions about Half Life

Hey, I've been wondering about something. The Gonarch gives birth to headcrabs, right? So if you defeat it in HL1, then where do the Headcrabs from HL2 come from? Are there multiple Gonarchs?

And whilst I'm at it, I may as well ask: Since Half Life Blue Shift is canon to an extent, what about the other Gear Box mods? Are they certified canon?

Finally, why does Vortigese sound gruff in the first game, yet in HL2 it's calm? Is it simply because the Vortigaunts have calmed down?

Holy shit took less than 5 minutes to get to me. Valve are really fast.

Me: Hi Chet! Can you please send me the video of Terror Strike from 2005 that shows TS gameplay as CS mod on an orange version of No Mercy first map street? It was on YouTube 2 years ago, and I saw it, but haven't seen it again.Chet Faliszek: Sorry we didn't keep any of that around, no idea who posted it or what was posted.Me: Do you keep any pre-release content at all?Chet: Not really, we are always iterating on our work - which is why the idea of a L4D beta build is a myth - I have no idea what that is.Me: So you don't even have HL1 Beta images and videos on your servers?Chet: No.

FAIL.

Me: Hi Robin! Can you please send me tf2.zip file (34.19mb) from NerdCon 1998 in Germany? I saw links to it on some dead sites, but Internet Archive does not archive large files. And maybe 4mb (it's 2.66mb - my fault) tf2remake.zip from the same time.